A look back at WWII island history: Castaways, stragglers & survivors

Last of two parts

In 1944 after the fighting had subsided on Tinian, several American officers found a unique way to convince Japanese stragglers and holdouts on the island to surrender. They reformed a Japanese prisoner of war and put him to work selling surrender to other solders. After the capture of this enemy soldier the conversion process began when he was placed in a hospital as a result of minor injuries. The prisoner was fitted out with new clothing then taken for a shower, shave and haircut. He was then treated to beer, cheese, apples, cigarettes, peanuts and sandwiches. Over the next several days this Japanese prisoner convinced 500 hundred Japanese to surrender without a shot being fired.

In another incident a group of Japanese were discovered in February 1945, when several Chamorros from Saipan were sent to the island of Anatahan to recover the bodies of a Saipan based B-29 (tail designation – T Square 42, from the 498th Bomb Group). The aircraft had crashed on the island after returning from a bombing raid on Japan. The Chamorros reported that there were Japanese survivors from three Japanese ships sunk in June 1944, one of which was an Okinawan woman.

After the war officials of the Japanese government became interested in the situation on Anatahan and asked the Navy for information “concerning the doomed and living Robinson Crusoes who were living a primitive life on an uninhabited island,” and offered to send a ship to rescue them.

The families of the Japanese holdouts on the island of Anatahan were contacted in Japan and requested by the U.S. Navy to write letters advising them that the war was over and that they should surrender. In January 1951, a message from the Governor of Kanagawa Prefecture was delivered to them, which read:

“I am very proud to learn that all of you are in good health and still residing on a small island in the Pacific six years after the war is over.

“I will not blame you for saying that our country lost this war. That was six years ago in 1945. It was the 15th of August 1945 when the peace treaty was signed (sic*).

“Our country lost this war, but we are not unfortunate, as the United States is giving us the best of opportunities to recover and I am sure that we are the best of friends in the present world.

“During the war it was said that the American soldiers were killing all prisoners of war, but that was not true. The United States treated our prisoners the best until 1947 when all of them were released and sent home. Now there are no other Japanese military men in the Pacific except you gentlemen.

“Previously, in our country, a prisoner of war lost face so that even after the war if he came home he had to live in a dark world. That is not so now. The Emperor ordered all our people, wherever they were, to surrender peacefully. All of those returned will never be separated from their home people again. Those who have returned to Japan give the Americans thanks that the long period of their suffering is over.

“I believe you have read letters from your family which said not to worry, which will give you confidence to give yourself up to the Americans. In the box of new letters sent to you we are enclosing a piece of white cloth with which you can signal the Navy boat. You do not have to worry. The Americans will give you their best attention and kindness until you are returned to our country.”

Finally on June 30, 1951, 18 Japanese castaways, all survivors of a convoy sunk on June 12, 1944, surrendered to Lt. Commander James B. Johnson U.S.N. five years and eight months after the conclusion of hostilities.

Still another instance involving a Japanese straggler concerned one Onoda Hiro, a Japanese soldier who was finally urged out of the jungle of Lubang in the Philippines in March 1974, where he had spent 29 years since the end of the war. He believed he was securing the island for the eventual return of the Japanese army and in the process terrorized the population. After many unsuccessful rescue attempts led by the Japanese government, Onoda showed himself to a young Japanese who was searching for him and gave himself up.

In September 1974 Nakamura Teruo, another Japanese straggler, was spotted by an Indonesian Air Force pilot in an isolated clearing on Morotai. It took two months for the information to reach the Japanese embassy in Jakarta, and for steps to be taken to coax him out of the jungle. He had spent 30 years in isolation and did not know the war was over and was convinced he would be killed if he was found.

Today, it’s highly unlikely, but not entirely impossible, that any World War II Japanese military survivors are still on any of the islands. If so, they would be around 77 to 80 years old and completely unaware of the great changes that have occurred over the past 60 years.

Source: Richard, Dorothy E., United States Naval Administration of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, Vol. I, 1957, U. S. Government Printing Office
(*)Allied forces were ordered to cease offensive operations against Japan on Aug. 15. The surrender document was signed on Sept. 2, 1945 aboard the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

(William H. Stewart is an economist, historian, and military historical cartographer. This piece was written as part of the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II.) (William H. Stewart)